Enjoy outdoor living without the bugs and nasty weather

Patrick Langston, Ottawa Citizen06.06.2014

Lee and Sue Sumner enjoy the outdoors without mosquitoes, rain or shine, thanks to the three-season room built onto their Carp home. It's where the family eats most summertime meals. It's a place for the couple to enjoy at night after their daughters are in bed. Large, screened windows keep it bright and allow for lots of fresh air to circulate.

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Backyard, summer time, family life: an unbeatable combination, thought Carp residents Lee and Sue Sumner. Then again, this is Ottawa - mosquito central and ground zero for fickle weather.

So the couple went in search of a solution. After shopping around, they wound up with a laid-back, three-season room added to the rear of their home, one of several options available to homeowners wanting to maximize outdoor living while minimizing the bugs and vagaries of weather.

The Sumners' room is a rich blend of natural daylight and rustic pine with exposed roof trusses, a wood-burning fireplace and direct access from the house via the kitchen patio doors. When the cold weather arrives, it can be simply closed off.

WeatherWall Enclosures (Ottawa) supplied the Eze-Breeze window panels - each window consists of a screen and four movable sections for multiple ventilation options - and contracted out the construction of the 300-squarefoot room.

"In the summer, that's where we eat most of our meals, and after the girls are in bed we sit out there," says Sue.

"It's way beyond our highest expectation," says her husband. "It's halfway between being in the house and the garden. When we get the fireplace cranked up, we can even use it a bit on a winter day."

The hexagonal room cost roughly $40,000 including windows that are made of shatterproof vinyl rather than glass.

The fireplace and some other extras added $10,000 to the price.

Custom-made Eze-Breeze windows don't conduct heat and are therefore a cooler option than glass, according to WeatherWall (Ottawa) owner John Caldwell.

They're available in clear or UV ray-blocking styles as well as floorto-ceiling configurations. Along with matching doors, they can be added to an existing structure such as a porch or gazebo or included in an addition like the Sumners'.

When added to a porch or other structure, windows are $400 to $500 per panel plus installation, says Caldwell.

"We've installed them everywhere from townhouse condos to mansions. It's a cottage in your own backyard."

GLASS WALLS AND COURTYARDS

Ottawa architect Christopher Simmonds suggests installing an expanse of screened sliding doors at the rear of your home to connect with the outside world without going to the expense of adding an entire structure.

"You can get 16-foot sliding doors in four panels, so you have an eightfoot-wide opening. Then you can add operable windows at either end of the room for more light and ventilation."

Adding an exterior structure can work if it's done strategically, he says, but not much is gained if its roof blocks daylight from entering the house.

He's also designed residential courtyards. They're not bug-proof, but they can create alluring microclimates, according to Simmonds. "They block the wind and trap the heat and sun so you can be comfortable sitting outside on a sunny day in April."

SUNROOMS

Betterliving Patio and Sunrooms of Ottawa sells sunrooms (a.k.a. solariums or Florida rooms). Available in both three-and four-season models, the tempered-glass structures run $150 to $200 per square foot, are attached to the house and mounted on concrete pylons or steel posts that sit below the frost line, and have an aluminum roof.

Simmonds worries that glass-intensive structures can create heat buildup, but Betterliving's Mike Pisapio says that exterior solar shades allow visibility to the outside while blocking the sun's heat. The company's four-season models have double-paned Energy Star windows and insulated floors. Heating and air conditioning vents can be connected to the house's HVAC system.

Sunrooms provide flexible living space, says Pisapio. "People have their coffee and read the paper in the morning or they use them for family rooms with pool tables and flat-screen TVs. It's just like any other extension on a house."

The company also sells screen rooms. Costing around $100 per square foot, they combat bugs and the rain, but not chilly weather.

GAZEBOS

Gazebos - available in a rainbow of styles and sizes, including custom-built models, prefabs and DIY kits - are a free-standing option for outdoor living. Some are open-sided, others entirely closed.

They can be mounted on or adjacent to a deck or placed at a distance from the house surrounded by vegetation with a pathway leading to them, says Dan Kelly of Ottawa's Hickory Dickory Decks. He sells cedar and low-maintenance, PVC-clad gazebos, including custom designs ranging from $12,000 to $30,000.

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